8.1 About Customizing Reports and Analytics

In Oracle Fusion Applications, reports and analytics are built using Oracle Business Intelligence:

Reports are built with Oracle Business Intelligence Publisher (Oracle BI Publisher) and are usually highly-formatted, detailed documents.

Analytics are analyses and dashboards built with Oracle Business Intelligence Presentation Services. Analyses are queries based on real-time, transactional or operational data that provide answers to business questions. Dashboards provide personalized views of corporate and external information. A dashboard consists of one or more pages that contain content, such as analyses, links to websites, BI Publisher reports, and so on.

8.2 Customizing Reports

This section describes how to use Oracle BI Publisher to customize and extend reports for Oracle Fusion Applications. It includes the following sections:

8.2.1 About Customizing Reports

Reports extract the data from your applications and present it in the formats required for your enterprise. Reports provide the information you need for internal operations and statutory compliance; reports also provide the business documents for communicating with your customers. Many product-specific reports are provided with Oracle Fusion Applications; for example, the invoice register, the pick slip report, the payroll summary, the journals report, and the customer credit memo. To meet the specific needs of your enterprise, you may need to customize the reports provided or you may need to create new reports to capture and present different data.

Understanding the BI Publisher reporting architecture will help you to understand the report customization scenarios and tasks. A report in Oracle BI Publisher consists of the following components:

A data model that defines the data source, data structure, and parameters for the report. A data model can be used by multiple reports. Each report has one data model.

One or more layouts to define the presentation, formatting, and visualizations of the data. A report may have multiple layouts of the data model.

A set of properties that specify runtime and formatting options

Optionally, a report may also include:

Translations to provide localized versions of a report

8.2.1.1 About Tasks Required When Customizing Reports That Are Submitted by the Oracle Enterprise Scheduler

Many Oracle Fusion applications use the Oracle Enterprise Scheduler to submit report requests to Oracle BI Publisher. For reports that require parameter value input from users, the Oracle Enterprise Scheduler uses a parameter view object to collect and validate parameter values to send to BI Publisher.

After you customize the report in Oracle BI Publisher, additional tasks are required to set up the Oracle Enterprise Scheduler job definition to run your report from Oracle Fusion applications. If your report customization includes customizing parameters that are passed to Oracle BI Publisher, you will likely need to customize the parameter view object.

This chapter highlights the additional tasks required for these related components. You must also reference the following documents for full descriptions of how to customize them and how to configure the Oracle Enterprise Scheduler job definition to integrate the parameter view object:

For the full description of view objects and creating them in JDeveloper, see the "Defining SQL Queries Using View Objects" chapter in the Oracle Fusion Middleware Fusion Developer's Guide for Oracle Application Development Framework (Oracle Fusion Applications Edition).

8.2.1.2 What You Can Customize

In many cases, Oracle BI Publisher reports delivered with Oracle Fusion applications will contain the appropriate data elements you expect, but may not provide the presentation of the data just as you would like it. Oracle BI Publisher enables you to customize the layouts for reports leveraging the prebuilt data models. If the reports provided by Oracle Fusion applications do not include the data you require, you can create a new report based on a custom data model.

Important:

Do not edit the predefined report objects. If you change a report and a subsequent patch includes a new version of the report, the patch overwrites any customizations. If subsequent patches do not include a new version of the report, the customizations are retained. When customizing reports, always make a copy of the original object and edit the copy.

Some common report customization scenarios are shown in the following table.

Customization Use Case

Described in

Edit the layout of a report provided with an application

For example: Add your company logo to the Receivables Credit Memo report

8.2.1.3 Related Report Customization Tasks

Depending on how a report is implemented in Oracle Fusion Applications and the type of customization you make you may also have to perform additional tasks to implement your custom report in the system.

If you create a new report and you wish to schedule this report through Oracle Enterprise Scheduler Service, you must create an Oracle Enterprise Scheduler Service job for the report. If you require Oracle Enterprise Scheduler Service to send parameter values to the Oracle BI Publisher report via a parameter view object, you must also create the view object.

If you create a custom layout and you require translations of the layout, you must also provide the translations. Oracle BI Publisher provides a tool for extracting the translation file for some layout types. The translation file can be translated into the required languages then uploaded to the report.

8.2.1.4 Tools for Customizing Reports

Customize reports either within the Oracle BI Publisher application or using one of the tools or applications listed in Table 8-2. For the list of certified versions of third-party applications, see the "System Requirements and Certification" section in the Oracle Fusion Middleware Report Designer's Guide for Oracle Business Intelligence Publisher.

In addition, be familiar with the following Oracle BI Publisher-specific requirements:

Ensure that you have proper permissions for editing and creating Oracle Business Intelligence Publisher objects

To create or edit reports and report layouts requires the BIAuthor Role (or a role that includes the BIAuthor Role) as well as write permissions on the objects in the catalog to be edited.

To create or edit data models requires a custom role that includes the BIAuthor Role and the developDataModel permission (oracle.bi.publisher.developDataModel). Note that the ability to create Oracle BI Publisher data models allows the user to write and execute SQL, therefore implementors must consider carefully to whom they grant the developDataModel permission, and on which environments.

To create the custom role for editing data models, follow the guidelines in the "Configuring Roles" section in the Oracle Fusion Applications Administrator's Guide.

Understand how the patching process for catalog objects impacts customizations

If a patch includes an update to a catalog object that was delivered with an Oracle Fusion application (for example, the Payables Invoice Register report) the patch will overwrite any customizations applied to the original report. To avoid overwriting a customization, do not customize a predefined Oracle Fusion application object in place; create a copy of the object and customize the copy.

Understand how permissions are set for and inherited by catalog objects

For a user to view a report, the user's role must have read permissions on every object referenced by a report. Permissions can be inherited from the folder in which the object resides.

For ease of maintenance, Oracle recommends that you place customized reports within the same folder as the original; or, if creating a new report that you place it within the same folder as other reports for the same job role.

If you choose to create new folders, bear in mind the catalog security permissions required (see the "Managing Objects in the Oracle BI Presentation Catalog" chapter in the Oracle Fusion Middleware User's Guide for Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition (Oracle Fusion Applications Edition)).

Be aware of any application-specific guidelines for customizing reports

Be aware of property settings that determine how the report can be run and viewed

Some reports are configured to run only through an external application or through the Oracle Enterprise Scheduler. While customizing a report, you may want to configure it temporarily for viewing online to facilitate testing. See Task: Review Report Settings for Online Viewing for information about these settings.

Know how to navigate to Oracle BI Presentation Catalog objects

Navigate to the Oracle BI Presentation Catalog as follows:

On the Navigator, under Tools, click Reports and Analytics. In the Reports and Analytics pane, click Browse Catalog.

Alternatively, log in to Oracle Business Intelligence directly (example: http://host:port/analytics/saw.dll).

Oracle Fusion Applications reporting objects are organized by product family in the catalog typically as follows:

8.2.2 Customizing Layouts

The layout defines the presentation of the report data. All reports delivered with Oracle Fusion Applications include at least one predefined layout template file that defines the presentation components (such as tables and labeled fields) and maps the elements from the data model to these components. The layout also defines font sizes, styles, borders, shading, and can also include images, such as a company logo.

To customize a layout, you edit the layout template. Oracle BI Publisher supports several types of templates to support different report layout requirements. Most of the templates delivered with Oracle Fusion Applications are rich text format (RTF) templates created using Microsoft Word. Some predefined templates are BI Publisher layout templates created using Oracle BI Publisher's layout editor. These are for interactive and more visually appealing layouts. A third type is the eText template, which is used specifically for electronic data interchange (EDI) and electronic funds transfer (EFT).

Oracle BI Publisher templates can also be created using Adobe PDF, Microsoft Excel, Adobe Flash, and XSL-FO.

Some examples of layout customizations are:

Style changes only, no changes to data mapping

This is the simplest type of customization. Examples are removing the predefined logo from the report and inserting your own or simply modifying colors and font styles. For these changes you can download the predefined template and edit it. Because there are no changes to the data mapping, style changes do not require sample data from your report; however, having sample data available will enable testing of the template from your desktop.

Changes to mapped data elements within the existing layout

An example of this type of customization is adding or removing a table column or data field from the report layout. For these changes you must have sample data to load to the layout editing tool. You can download the predefined template, load your sample data, insert the required elements, preview your template, then upload your customized template back to the report definition.

New presentation of the data

To create a new layout, start by opening the layout editing tool and loading the sample data to begin designing your custom layout.

Task: Generate Sample Data from the Report

The layout tools require sample data to enable the mapping of data fields to layout components in the report. You can generate sample data in the following ways:

From the report data model

From the report viewer

To generate sample data from the data model:

Navigate to the report data model in the Oracle BI Presentation Catalog and click Edit.

Tip:

If you are not sure which data model is the source for a particular report, click the report Edit link. The data model is displayed in the upper left corner of the report editor.

In the data model editor, click Get XML Output as shown in Figure 8-2.

Figure 8-2 Getting XML Output from a Data Model

Enter values for any required parameters, select the Number of rows to return, and click Run.

To save the sample data to the data model, click the Actions menu and then click Save As Sample Data, as shown in Figure 8-3.

Figure 8-3 Saving Sample Data to a Data Model

If you are designing an RTF template, you may also wish to Export the XML to save the file to a local client for use with the Template Builder for Microsoft Word.

Click Return. Then save the data model.

To save sample data from the report viewer:

Navigate to the report in the Business Intelligence catalog.

Click Open to run the report in the report viewer with the default parameters.

On the Actions menu, click Export, then click Data.

Save the data file.

Task: Make a Copy of the Original Report

Navigate to the report in the Oracle BI Presentation Catalog.

To make a copy of the report:

Select the report by clicking anywhere in the row. On the catalog toolbar, click Copy as shown in Figure 8-4.

(Optional) Update the report description. In the catalog, click the Edit link. In the report editor, click the Properties link at the top of the page. Enter the Description for your report, for example: "Payables invoice register report with custom layout".

Task: Review Report Settings for Online Viewing

Some reports are configured to view only through an external application or through the Oracle Enterprise Scheduler Service. If you wish to view your report online while you are customizing it, ensure that the following properties are set as follows.

Report Properties Settings

Run Report Online - must be enabled

Report is Controlled by External Application - must be disabled

To navigate to the report Properties dialog:

Navigate to your report copy in the catalog and click Edit.

In the report editor, click the Properties link at the top of the page.

In the Properties dialog, select Run Report Online and clear Report is Controlled by External Application. These properties are shown in Figure 8-6.

Figure 8-6 Report Properties Dialog

Layout Setting

The layout setting View Online must be enabled.

To view the layout settings:

In the report editor, click View a List. Ensure that the View Online property is enabled.

If you created a layout using the layout editor, the layout is automatically saved to the report definition and you can skip this step. For all other layout types upload the template file to the report definition.

To upload the template file to the report definition:

Navigate to your custom report in the catalog and click Edit.

On the report definition page, click View a List. On the table that lists the layouts, click Create (the "+" button).

Click Upload to upload the template file from your local directory.

Save the report definition.

Task: Configure the Layout Settings

Tip:

To hide the original layout from users, clear the Active box.

To edit the layout settings:

In the report editor, click View a List. The List View is shown in Figure 8-7.

Figure 8-7 Report Layouts Shown in the List View

Set the following properties for your custom layout:

Output Formats

Output formats are the file formats available for the generated report, such as PDF, HTML, RTF, Excel. Depending on the requirements of a report you may want to limit the output formats available to users. The output formats available will depend on the Template File Type.

Default Output Format

If multiple output formats are available for the report, the default output format will be generated by default when the report is run in the report viewer.

Default Layout

If multiple layouts are available for the report, the default layout will be presented first in the report viewer. One and only one layout must be selected as the default layout.

Apply Style Template

If a style template is assigned to this report, use this field to apply the style template to the layout.

Active

Active layouts are displayed to report consumers. Inactivate the layout to make it unavailable to report consumers.

View Online

Layouts that can be viewed online are available to report consumers from the report viewer. If this property is not checked, the layout is available only for scheduled jobs.

Task: Delete a Layout

To delete a layout from the report:

In the report editor, click View a List.

Locate the layout that you wish to delete in the table and click anywhere within its row to select it.

Click the Delete toolbar button. Click OK in the confirmation dialog.

Task: (Conditional) Create the Oracle Enterprise Scheduler Service Job to Run the Custom Report

8.2.2.1 Customizing RTF Templates

Most templates delivered with Oracle Fusion Applications are RTF templates. An RTF template is a rich text format file that contains the layout instructions for BI Publisher to use when generating the report. RTF templates are created using Microsoft Word. Oracle BI Publisher provides an add-in to Microsoft Word to facilitate the coding of layout instructions. For more information see the "Creating RTF Templates Using the Template Builder for Word" chapter in the Oracle Fusion Middleware Report Designer's Guide for Oracle Business Intelligence Publisher.

Ensure that your local client has a supported version of Microsoft Word. Oracle BI Publisher provides the Template Builder for Microsoft Word to facilitate RTF template design. Download the tool from the Oracle Business Intelligence home page. For more information see the "Creating RTF Templates Using the Template Builder for Word" chapter in the Oracle Fusion Middleware Report Designer's Guide for Oracle Business Intelligence Publisher.

Task: Download the Template File

If you are creating a new layout, skip this step.

If you are modifying a predefined layout, navigate to the report in the catalog and click Edit. In the report editor, click the Edit link of the layout to download the RTF file to your local client, as shown in Figure 8-8.

Figure 8-8 Downloading the Predefined Layout

Task: Edit the RTF File in Microsoft Word

Open the downloaded RTF template file in Microsoft Word; or, if you are creating a new template, open Microsoft Word.

In the catalog, open the report in the report editor and click View a List. On the table that lists the layouts, click Create (the "+" button). Click Upload to upload the RTF file from your local directory as shown in Figure 8-9.

On the Insert tab in the Illustrations group click Picture. Select your company logo image file to insert it to the Word document. Resize the image as necessary. An example is shown in Figure 8-11.

Figure 8-11 Inserting the Logo in Microsoft Word

Tip:

If the template file includes section breaks, you must insert the new logo for each section header.

If you downloaded sample data, you can test the template on your desktop: On the Oracle BI Publisher tab, in the Preview group click PDF. The Template Builder will apply the sample data you loaded and generate a PDF output document, as shown in Figure 8-12.

Figure 8-12 Preview of Custom Layout Template

Example 8-2 Customizing an RTF Template Using an Existing Data Model

This example demonstrates the general steps for customizing an RTF template using an existing data model. In this example, the Payables Invoice Register data model is used to create a new layout to display a summary for each currency. This example demonstrates general report layout concepts and features of the Oracle BI Publisher Template Builder for Microsoft Word. Follow the steps in this topic and the guidelines in the Oracle Fusion Middleware Report Designer's Guide for Oracle Business Intelligence Publisher.

Using Microsoft Word functionality, insert the page header. Type the text for the header, and insert the field for the Business Unit as shown in Figure 8-13.

Figure 8-13 Inserting the Header to the RTF Template

In this example, the report will repeat the table of invoices for each occurrence of the currency code. To create this behavior, insert a repeating group based on the element C_CURRENCY_CODE. To insert the repeating group:

On the BI Publisher tab, in the Insert group, click Repeating Group.

In the BI Publisher Properties dialog, select the G_CURRENCY group as shown in Figure 8-14.

Figure 8-14 Selecting a Repeating Group

To display the field value, type the text "Currency:" after the for-each tag. To insert the element from the data: On the BI Publisher tab, in the Insert group, click Field. The Field dialog will display. Select the C_CURRENCY_CODE element, as shown in Figure 8-15.

Figure 8-15 Inserting the Currency Code Field

Use the table wizard to insert the table: On the BI Publisher tab in the Insert group, click Table Wizard. Make the following selections:

Click Finish. The inserted table will display with the column names from the data; also, if you preview the report, you will notice that no formatting is applied to number and date fields.

Edit the column names by simply editing the text in the column header row.

Apply formatting to the date and number fields. To apply formatting to the date field:

Note:

This example shows simple number formatting. If your report requires locale-driven number and date formatting, see the topic "Formatting Numbers, Dates, and Currencies" in the Oracle Fusion Middleware Report Designer's Guide for Oracle Business Intelligence Publisher.

Right-click the date field in the table and select BI Publisher then Properties from the menu.

In the BI Publisher Properties dialog, update the following (shown in Figure 8-17):

Set the Type to Date.

Select the date Format from the list.

Enter Text to display, for example: 8/7/2011.

Figure 8-17 Formatting the Date Field

To apply formatting to a number field:

Right-click the amount field in the table and select BI Publisher then Properties from the menu.

In the BI Publisher Properties dialog, update the following (shown in Figure 8-18):

Set the Type to Number

Select the number Format from the list.

Enter Text to display, for example: 999.00.

Figure 8-18 Formatting the Number Field

To display the total for each currency, enter the text: "Currency Total Remaining:" beneath the table, but inside the for-each / end tags. Insert the field as follows:

On the BI Publisher tab, in the Insert group, click Field.

In the Insert Field dialog, click the "C Amount Rem" field (under the G Vendor group).

In the Calculation field, select Sum from the list as shown in Figure 8-19.

The completed template will appear as shown in Figure 8-20. To preview the template, click the PDF button in the Oracle BI Publisher Preview group.

Figure 8-20 Finished RTF Template

8.2.2.2 Customizing BI Publisher Templates

BI Publisher templates are created using the BI Publisher Layout Editor - a design tool that provides an intuitive, drag and drop interface for creating pixel perfect reports in PDF, RTF, Excel, PowerPoint, and HTML. It also provides dynamic HTML output that supports lightweight interaction through a browser.

BI Publisher layouts are best suited for reports of simple to medium complexity. The interactive view is only available for BI Publisher layouts, therefore choose this layout type when you want your report consumers to interact with the report (change sorting, apply filters, and so on).

Before you begin:

The BI Publisher layout editor requires the data model to include sample data. To save sample data to the data model, you must generate data according to the first option described in "Task: Generate Sample Data from the Report".

Task: Launch the Layout Editor from the Report Definition

Navigate to the report and click Edit. Click Add New Layout. Under the Create Layout region, click one of the Basic Templates or Shared Templates to launch the layout editor, as shown in Figure 8-21.

Figure 8-21 Selecting a Boilerplate to Launch the Layout Editor

Task: Create and Save the Layout

Create the layout using the guidelines in the online help or in the "Creating BI Publisher Layout Templates" chapter in the Oracle Fusion Middleware Report Designer's Guide for Oracle Business Intelligence Publisher. Click Save to save the layout to the report definition.

8.2.3 Customizing Data Models

A data model defines the source and structure of the data for a report. At runtime Oracle BI Publisher executes the data model to supply the XML data for a report. Create a custom data model when the data models supplied by your application do not provide the data required in your report. If you need to customize the data that is captured by the report data model, you can either edit an existing data model or create a custom data model.

Before You Begin: Understand the Use of Parameter View Objects with Oracle Enterprise Scheduler

If the report requires user input for parameter values and the report is submitted by the Oracle Enterprise Scheduler to Oracle BI Publisher, the Oracle Enterprise Scheduler uses a parameter view object to present and validate parameter values in the Oracle Fusion application. The values are then sent by Oracle Enterprise Scheduler to BI Publisher for execution of the data model.

In the parameter view object the parameters are defined as attributes and must be named incrementally as ATTRIBUTE1, ATTRIBUTE2, and so on. In the BI Publisher data model, you must define the parameters in the same order as they are defined in the parameter view object. The mapping of the value passed by Oracle Enterprise Scheduler to the BI Publisher data model is by order alone.

For example, in a BI Publisher data model assume you have defined the following parameters in this order:

P_BUSINESS_UNIT

P_VENDOR_ID

P_INVOICE_TYPE

In the parameter view object you must define ATTRIBUTE1 to retrieve the value for P_BUSINESS_UNIT; ATTRIBUTE2 to retrieve the values for P_VENDOR_ID; and ATTRIBUTE3 to retrieve the values for P_INVOICE_TYPE.

8.2.3.1 Editing Existing Data Models

Do not directly edit a data model delivered with an Oracle Fusion application. Instead, make a copy and edit the copy. To ensure that the proper privileges are inherited by the copied object, maintain the copy in the same folder as the original.

Task: Copy the Existing Data Model

Navigate to the data model in the Oracle BI Presentation Catalog. To make a copy:

Click anywhere in the object's row to select the data model.

On the catalog toolbar, click the Copy toolbar button; then click the Paste toolbar button to paste the copy into the same folder.

To rename the copy, click the More link, and then click Rename. Enter the new name, for example: InvoiceRegisterDM Custom.

Task: Customize the Data Model in the Data Model Editor

Click the Edit link in the catalog to open the data model in the data model editor. See the "Using the Data Model Editor" chapter in the Oracle Fusion Middleware Data Modeling Guide for Oracle Business Intelligence Publisher (Oracle Fusion Applications Edition) for general information about using the data model editor and the specific chapter for the component you wish to edit, for example:

To add or delete a field from the SQL query, see the topic "Editing an Existing Data Set" in the chapter "Creating Data Sets."

To add or delete a bursting definition, see the chapter "Adding Bursting Definitions."

To edit parameters, see "Adding Parameters and Lists of Values."

Important:

If the report will use the Oracle Enterprise Scheduler to collect parameter values from end users, then the parameter logic, list of values and display attributes that are presented in the application interface are defined in a parameter view object and the Oracle Enterprise Scheduler job definition. The parameter values are then passed to BI Publisher when the job is submitted.

In this case, edit the parameters in the parameter view object then ensure that the parameters in the BI Publisher data model are in the same order as they are defined in the parameter view object. Do not create the list of values in the BI Publisher data model for reports submitted via Oracle Enterprise Scheduler.

8.2.3.2 Creating a New Data Model

To create a data model:

Open the Data Model editor.

On the global header, click New, then click Data Model to open the data model editor.

If your data model will include event triggers you must enter the Oracle DB Default Package.

Create the data set.

You will most likely create data sets from SQL queries against your Oracle Fusion application data tables. The data model editor also supports using an Oracle BI analysis as its source of data as well as entity view objects created in Oracle JDeveloper. See the "Creating Data Sets" chapter in the Oracle Fusion Middleware Data Modeling Guide for Oracle Business Intelligence Publisher (Oracle Fusion Applications Edition) for more information about all supported data set types and how to create them. Figure 8-22 shows the menu of data set types available.

8.2.4 Creating Custom Reports

Create a custom report when the reports delivered with your Oracle Fusion application do not provide the data you need; or, if you want to use a predefined data model but change other properties of the report.

You can configure a variety of properties to set specific formatting, caching, and processing options for your report. To access the Properties dialog, click Properties in the report editor. For information on report properties see the "Configuring Report Properties" section in the Oracle Fusion Middleware Report Designer's Guide for Oracle Business Intelligence Publisher.

Task: (Conditional) Create an Oracle Enterprise Scheduler Job to Run the Custom Report

8.2.5 Adding Translations

Template translation is a feature of BI Publisher that enables the extraction of translatable strings from a single RTF-based template or a single BI Publisher layout template. Use this option when you need multiple translations of the final report document; for example, you need to generate invoices for both German and French customers.

For information on adding translations for your custom report layouts, see the "Translating Individual Templates" chapter in the Oracle Fusion Middleware Report Designer's Guide for Oracle Business Intelligence Publisher.

8.2.6 Tasks Required to Run Custom Reports with Oracle Enterprise Scheduler Service

If you created a new report, to run it using Oracle Enterprise Scheduler, you must create a new Oracle Enterprise Scheduler job definition. If you customized an existing report (for example, added a custom layout) for which an Oracle Enterprise Scheduler job definition was defined, you will need to create a new job definition to point to the custom report.

ReportID: Enter the path to the report in the Oracle BI Presentation Catalog, starting with the folder beneath Shared Folders; for example: Financials/Payables/Payables InvoiceRegisterCustom.xdo

Tip:

Ensure that you include the .xdo extension for the report object.

Default Output: Select a default output format.

Bursting Job: If the output from this job is to be burst, select this box. The BI Publisher report must have a bursting definition to use this option. When the report is executed, the output and delivery options are determined by the bursting definition. For information on setting up a bursting definition, see the "Adding Bursting Definitions" chapter in the Oracle Fusion Middleware Data Modeling Guide for Oracle Business Intelligence Publisher (Oracle Fusion Applications Edition).

Define the property parametersVO to point to the parameter view object you defined, if your custom job requires parameter input.

The parameter view object is a view object used by Oracle Enterprise Scheduler to collect user input for report parameters that the Oracle Enterprise Scheduler then sends to BI Publisher. The parameter view object defines the display of the parameters in the Oracle Enterprise Scheduler interface and performs validation of the input. Use JDeveloper to edit the parameter view object.

8.2.7 Securing Custom Reports and Related Components

When you create a custom report you may wish to create a custom role to enable only users that have been assigned the role to run the report. If you have also created an Oracle Enterprise Scheduler job to run the report, your users must also be assigned execution permissions for the job. All the tasks in this section are required when you create a custom role.

Only a system administrator can create a new application role, and optionally include the role in an existing role hierarchy. For information about creating application roles, see the "Managing Policies and Policy Objects" chapter in the Oracle Fusion Middleware Oracle Authorization Policy Manager Administrator's Guide (Oracle Fusion Applications Edition).

Task: Configure Permissions in the Oracle BI Presentation Catalog

Read permissions must be granted to every object in the Oracle BI Presentation Catalog that is used in the report. This will always include at least two objects: the report and the data model. If your report also references a subtemplate or a style template, you must also grant read permissions on those objects. The report object requires additional grants to run, schedule, and view output.

If you create the custom report within an existing product folder, for example Payables/Invoices, the report will inherit permissions that are granted on all objects in the folder. You may wish to delete permissions from your custom report.

Navigate to the report in the catalog and click More and then click Permissions. The Permissions dialog launches and the inherited permissions are shown.

In the Permissions dialog, click Add users/roles as shown in Figure 8-23.

Figure 8-23 Detail of Add Users/ Roles in the Permission Dialog

In the Add Application Roles, Catalog Groups and Users dialog, search for your custom role and use the shuttle buttons to move it to the Selected Members list. In the Set Permission to list, select Custom, as shown in Figure 8-24 and then click OK.

Figure 8-24 Adding a Role to the Selected Members List

In the Permissions dialog, locate the role you added and click Edit as shown in Figure 8-25.

Figure 8-25 Editing the Permissions Assigned to a Role

In the Custom Permissions dialog, select the permissions to enable. Typically, you will enable the following for a BI Publisher report:

Read - gives authority to access, but not modify, the report

Run Publisher Report - gives authority to read, traverse the folder that contains the report, and run the report.

Schedule Publisher Report - gives authority to read, traverse the folder that contains the report, and schedule the report

View Publisher Output - enables the user to view the report output generated by the scheduler

8.2.8 Making Reports Available to Users in the Reports and Analytics Pane

To make a report available to users through the Reports and Analytics pane, map the report to the work areas of the user roles that need access. For the procedure to map reports to work areas, see "Define Application Toolkit Configuration" in the Oracle Fusion Applications Common Implementation Guide.

8.2.9 Enabling Reports for Scheduling from the Reports and Analytics Pane

To enable scheduling through the Reports and Analytics pane, configure the report properties:

Navigate to the report in the Business Intelligence catalog and click Edit.

In the report editor, click Properties.

On the Properties dialog enter the following fields:

Enterprise Scheduler Job Package Name

Enter the Path for the Job Definition. For example: /oracle/apps/ess/financials/payables/invoices/transactions/Jobs

8.3 Customizing Analytics

This section describes how to use Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition to customize and extend analytics for Oracle Fusion Applications.

8.3.1 About Customizing Analytics

Analytics are analyses and dashboards built with Oracle Business Intelligence Presentation Services, based on objects in the Oracle BI repository. Analyses are queries based on real-time, transactional or operational data that provide answers to business questions. Dashboards provide personalized views of corporate and external information. A dashboard consists of one or more pages that contain content, such as analyses, links to Web sites, BI Publisher reports, and so on.

You can customize analyses using the Oracle BI Composer interface from within Oracle Fusion Applications. You can customize dashboards using Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition.

You can also customize objects in the Oracle BI repository (RPD) using the Oracle BI Administration Tool in either online or offline mode. Use online mode only for small changes that do not require running consistency checks. Running consistency checks against the full online repository can take a long time. Instead, make more complex changes that require consistency checks in offline mode against a project extract of the repository.

In a clustered system, restart all Oracle BI Servers except for the master server to propagate the changes.

You can use the Cluster Manager in the Administration Tool to identify the master Oracle BI Server.

Reload metadata in Oracle BI Presentation Services by clicking the Reload Files and Metadata link from the Administration page.

Offline

Full-scale development or customization activities that require running consistency checks multiple times and iterating

Configuring Descriptive Flexfields and Key Flexfields for Oracle Business Intelligence

Customizing existing fact or dimension tables

Adding new fact or dimension tables

Copy the RPD from the production computer to the Windows development computer.

Open the RPD in offline mode and make the appropriate changes.

Upload the repository using Fusion Applications Control and restart all Oracle Business Intelligence system components.

8.3.1.1 What You Can Customize in Analytics

You can customize analyses and dashboards, as well as objects in the Oracle BI repository (RPD).

Customizations to analyses and dashboards result in changes to the Oracle BI Presentation Catalog. Be aware that some patches include updates to the Oracle BI Presentation Catalog. All new objects are preserved during the patch process; in addition, changes to existing objects are preserved when the patch does not include a new version of that object.

If you change an existing presentation catalog object and subsequent patches do include a new version of the object, the patch process detects and logs conflicts, and patching will stop. The catalog administrator must resolve any conflicts manually using Catalog Manager and then rerun the patch.

In the Oracle BI repository, you can create new repository objects such as physical columns, logical table sources, logical columns, and presentation columns. Be aware that some patches include updates to the Oracle BI repository. New objects are preserved during the patch process; in addition, changes to existing objects are preserved when the patch does not include a new version of that object.

If you change an existing object and subsequent patches do include a new version of the object, the Merge Wizard in the Administration Tool provides a method to merge the changes. For most typical customizations, the merge process is straightforward. The exception is when presentation columns have been moved across presentation tables; in this situation, it is important to plan ahead and track the changes carefully to ensure your changes are preserved during the merge.

See the "Oracle BI Applications Patching" chapter in the Oracle Fusion Middleware Reference Guide for Oracle Business Intelligence Applications for more information about patching the Oracle BI Presentation Catalog and Oracle BI repository.

8.3.1.2 Before You Begin Customizing Analytics

Before you customize analytics, ensure you have proper permissions for editing and creating Oracle Business Intelligence Presentation Catalog objects and understand how to set permissions in the catalog. For more information about setting permissions in the catalog, see the "Managing Objects in the Oracle BI Presentation Catalog" chapter in the Oracle Fusion Middleware User's Guide for Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition (Oracle Fusion Applications Edition).

In addition, you must have the BIAuthor role to customize analytics (either explicitly granted, or inherited from another role).

Follow these guidelines when customizing analytics:

When customizing referenced objects (such as embedded dashboards or targets of navigation actions), consider customizing them in place using "Save." Note that objects for Oracle Transactional Business Intelligence and Oracle Business Intelligence Applications provide conflict detection so that your customizations will not be overwritten during future patches.

When customizing objects that are not referenced, consider using "Save As." You have the following choices when using Save As:

Existing folder structure (recommended)

Saving to the existing folder structure extends the organization of your existing reports to include the custom reports. To use this approach, make sure that an Oracle BI administrator (a user with the BIAdmin role) grants Write permissions to the BIAuthor role for the given folders. Note that the reports inherit folder permissions that control which roles have Read and Write access.

New folders under Shared Folders

To use this approach, an Oracle BI administrator must create these folders and then grant Write permission to the BIAuthor role, as well as Read permission to other application roles as needed.

My Folders

Because nobody else can access My Folders, you do not typically save analytics to that location except for testing purposes.

8.3.2 Customizing Analytics

You can customize analytics from the Reports and Analytics pane in Oracle Fusion Applications.

Task: Customizing Analytics

To customize analytics, go to the Reports and Analytics pane and locate to the object you want to customize. For analyses, click the object and then select Edit to use the Oracle BI Composer to edit the object. For dashboards, click the object and then select More to go to the Catalog page in Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition.

For information on customizing analyses using Oracle BI Composer, see the "Using BI Composer to Work with Analyses" chapter in the Oracle Fusion Middleware User's Guide for Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition (Oracle Fusion Applications Edition).

For information on customizing dashboards in the Catalog page, see the "Building and Using Dashboards" chapter in the Oracle Fusion Middleware User's Guide for Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition (Oracle Fusion Applications Edition).

8.3.3 Customizing the Oracle BI Repository (RPD)

You can customize and extend the Oracle BI repository (RPD file).

Task: Create BI View Objects for Custom Fact and Dimension Tables

Whenever you create a custom fact or dimension table, you must create a BI view object for that table and incorporate it into the Oracle Fusion application before you can import it into the Oracle BI repository. To do this, follow these steps:

When you create the custom table, you must grant the necessary privileges (such as SELECT) to the FUSION_BI schema user in addition to the FUSION_RUNTIME schema user. Otherwise, queries against the new table will fail.

In some cases, you might want to modify existing fact or dimension tables in the Oracle BI repository. For example, assume you want to deploy Oracle Fusion Project Portfolio Management, but use the PeopleSoft Procurement application as a source. In this situation, you would set up a custom table in Oracle Fusion Applications that populates Commitments data from PeopleSoft. Then, you would need to change the Commitments fact table in the Oracle BI repository (RPD file) to point to the new custom table.

Use the Import Metadata Wizard in the Administration Tool to import the new view object into the Physical layer of the RPD under the appropriate database object. Then, join the new view object to the existing dimension view objects. You must connect as the FUSION_APPS_BI_APPID user in the Select Data Source screen of the Import Metadata Wizard.

Create a new logical table source under the existing Commitment logical fact table, and map all metrics to the physical columns from the new view object. Then, deactivate the existing Commitments logical table source.

Using this approach, all Presentation layer metadata, analyses, and dashboards will continue to work with data coming from the new physical columns.

In other cases, you might want to extend existing fact or dimension tables using existing view objects that have new attributes. For example, you might want to incorporate fields on standard Oracle Fusion Applications pages that are not currently being used for analysis into the Oracle BI repository.

To extend existing fact or dimension tables for existing view objects that have new attributes:

Use the Import Metadata Wizard in the Oracle BI Administration Tool to import the view objects that correspond to the Oracle Fusion Applications fields into the Physical layer of the RPD. You must connect as the FUSION_APPS_BI_APPID user in the Select Data Source screen of the Import Metadata Wizard.

In some cases, you might want to add new fact or dimension tables to your Oracle BI repository. Possible sources include custom tables in Oracle Fusion Applications, additional tables in the data warehouse, or new physical data sources.

Use the Import Metadata Wizard in the Oracle BI Administration Tool to import the new view object (for Oracle Fusion Applications) or physical table (for warehouse or other physical sources) into the Physical layer of the RPD. For non-warehouse physical sources, you must create a new connection pool as part of the import process. You must connect as the FUSION_APPS_BI_APPID user in the Select Data Source screen of the Import Metadata Wizard.

For more information, see the following resources in the Oracle Fusion Middleware Metadata Repository Builder's Guide for Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition (Oracle Fusion Applications Edition):

In some cases, you might want to change how the names of facts and dimensions in the Presentation layer appear in Answers reports, to comply with naming standards or for other reasons. Table 8-5 summarizes considerations for different use cases.

Table 8-5 Use Cases for Changing How Metadata Is Displayed

Use Case

For More Information

For warehouse sources, display names are typically externalized into a database table. To customize the names, you can change them in the externalized tables with no impact to the metadata itself.

Note that for situations where display names are externalized into a database table, changing the names of Presentation layer objects in the RPD has no impact on the names displayed in Answers reports.

See the "Localizing Metadata Names in the Repository" section in the Oracle Fusion Middleware System Administrator's Guide for Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition for more information about externalizing display names.

For Oracle Transactional Business Intelligence sources, display names are typically customized using UI hints (labels and tooltips) within Oracle Fusion Applications. Changing the UI hint name does not impact metadata.

Note that for situations where display names are customized using UI hints, changing the names of Presentation layer objects in the RPD has no impact on the names displayed in Answers reports.

See the "Propagating Labels and Tooltips from ADF Data Sources" section in the Oracle Fusion Middleware Metadata Repository Builder's Guide for Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition (Oracle Fusion Applications Edition) for more information about how UI hints are propagated in the RPD.

For situations where Presentation layer names are not externalized or tied to UI hints, display names must be modified directly in the RPD. Existing reports will continue to work because the old names are stored as aliases.

Note the following about reorganizing Presentation layer metadata in the RPD:

Reordering presentation columns within a presentation table will not cause existing reports to break. When subsequent patches are applied, the new custom order is preserved when the patch does not include changes to the column order for that table.

Moving presentation columns across different presentation tables can cause existing reports to break and is not recommended. If you do move presentation columns across tables, it is important to plan ahead and track the changes carefully.

In addition, you can use the Map to Logical Model screen of the Import Metadata Wizard to automatically propagate the flexfield changes to the Business Model and Mapping layer.

Finally, for Oracle BI Applications customers, you can configure and enable the BI Extender functionality to propagate flexfield changes to the data warehouse.

See the following sections in the Oracle Fusion Middleware Metadata Repository Builder's Guide for Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition (Oracle Fusion Applications Edition) for more information about these topics:

Typically, data source connection pool settings are different in production repositories. You can use the Oracle BI Server XML API to programmatically update these settings in the repository when moving changes to production systems. See the "Moving from Test to Production Environments" section in the Oracle Fusion Middleware XML Schema Reference for Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition for more information.